[Jaysun]

Sweet Sassy Molassy! I began reading some of the material on the links that you'd provided. I stopped as soon as the song from the Twilight Zone became loud enough to break my concentration. I'm sure that he has some valid points - perhaps ALL of his points are valid. However, I'm of the opinion that the education system is a steaming pile as a result of a few simple things:
a) Teacher's Unions protect inept teachers and policies.
b) There's no competition to promote better results.
c) The emphasis on "self esteem" is producing kids that are illiterate, but feel good about it. The "self esteem plague" has also caused a decline in good ole competition, the dumbing down of lessons and requirements to avoid hurting the feelings of the less intelligent, and leaves children unequipped for a world in which everyone is NOT equal in ability and nobody cares how much you love yourself.
d) The Government's top-down style of management and mandates to the slightest detail has killed creativity and ingenuity in the teachers and staff.

[moog]

RE: The emphasis on "self esteem" is producing kids that are illiterate, but feel good about it. The "self esteem plague" has also caused a decline in good ole competition, the dumbing down of lessons and requirements to avoid hurting the feelings of the less intelligent, and leaves children unequipped for a world in which everyone is NOT equal in ability and nobody cares how much you love yourself.

I've been a teacher for some 9 years. I've been looking for this doctrine in public education ever since I started and haven't found it yet. I do think that it may have been in there in the 80's or so, but isn't that about 20 years ago??

That makes me wonder about some other comments that education bashers often make. BTW, I'm from Utah where the research showed that the person's research showed that we teachers in Utah do a lot with a little.